According to Head of State Florian Herrmann (CSU), the Free State of Bavaria is “ready at any time” to “focus and pay out” the state’s own relief packages in the energy crisis. At the moment, however, the federal government is “the obstacle to disbursement,” he said on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting, since all the details of the aid from Berlin first had to be clarified. Bavaria will then fill in additional gaps, Herrmann called this “subsidiary intervention” – with a total package of over 1.5 billion euros, which Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) had recently announced after the Council of Ministers’ budget meeting.
This energy hardship fund is divided into three parts. In addition to small and medium-sized companies, it is also intended to help clubs, clinics, nursing, social and educational institutions as well as citizens whose livelihoods are at risk because of the energy crisis. In addition, there are also guarantees from the LfA development bank for companies in financial difficulties, which were decided a long time ago, again up to 500 million euros. “We are up in the air as far as the exact design is concerned,” said Social Affairs Minister Ulrike Scharf (CSU) on Tuesday. The Bavarian fund must intervene because the federal government is not making any progress “with its big promises”.
So the state government is still waiting to see which cases of hardship should be covered by the federal government. There are therefore still many question marks as to what will happen when and by what means. Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW) had warned before the meeting to hurry up for the relief by the Free State. “If we wait until the final vote on the 2023 budget in March or April, it will be too late. It has to come much earlier.” He wanted to raise this issue in the Council of Ministers. After the rough budget draft ten days ago, the final decision on the one-year budget for the coming year (volume: 71 billion euros) will probably last until spring.
SPD and Greens bring a supplementary budget into play
The SPD offered to help the CSU and Free Voters, and budget expert Harald Güller suggested passing a supplementary budget for 2022 in parliament before Christmas. “We also did that during Corona. It has proven itself. That’s exactly what we should do again now.” Green budget politician Claudia Köhler said: “Winter aid must come in winter. Now a supplementary budget for 2022 is urgently needed to implement the aid fund.”
In a statement, Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) gave the impression that the release of these funds does not necessarily have to be linked to the official decision on the overall budget in spring. “In Bavaria, we will all pull together with the involvement of the state parliament and get the necessary help off the ground as quickly as possible,” said Füracker of the German Press Agency. However, the “chaos” of the traffic light government in Berlin makes budget planning enormously difficult.
The Free State will probably take over the organizational responsibility for distributing federal funds from its relief packages and, logically, for its own pots. An application and processing, for example via the chambers, as in the Corona crisis, would be conceivable, Aiwanger spoke of a “testing third party”. An example: According to the Economics Minister, only companies such as bakers or butchers that rely on gas could benefit from federal money; in the case of oil, the Free State would step in again. This circumstance is “downright grotesque” if the company is punished for its “energy switch in the sense of the overall system” instead of being rewarded.
Furthermore, the Economics Minister already has a number of ideas in mind for implementation: In a first step, distressed companies would have to prove that the energy costs account for a certain proportion of sales, and in a second step that their profits would be “eaten up” by the price increases, so Aiwanger. Every company will very quickly have clarity as to “whether it is allowed in the system”. The food banks in Bavaria, which provide food for the needy, are also to receive one million euros from the fund.
The cabinet has also dealt with the reform of citizen income. On Monday, the Union temporarily stopped its introduction in the Bundesrat. The mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat should now find a compromise. The current Hartz IV system is to be replaced with citizen income on January 1 of next year. Bayern shows little willingness to compromise.
According to her own statements, Minister of Social Affairs Scharf will take part in a working group in Berlin this week, which is already conducting preliminary negotiations on the mediation committee. On Tuesday she again criticized central points of the planned reform. For example, the fact that there are “virtually no more sanctions is unacceptable”. The envisaged allowance of 60,000 euros for beneficiaries is also “much too high”, 10,000 euros is a suitable value; possibly with the exception of people with “lifetime achievement”, who only slipped into unemployment at the age of 60. In general, if you work, you have to have more in your pocket. Aiwanger called the reform plans a “slap in the face” for working people.